Free (Amazon) Strange Forces 1 by Engle and Barnes [YA urban fantasy]

[Fbone]

Originally published in 1996. The first in a series. All 15 reviews are 5-star but also rated high on GR.

http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Forces...7296996&sr=1-4

The students of Fairfield Junior High have noticed that the strange things happening in their town are becoming more common — more dangerous. With each dreadful encounter, they are further convinced — monsters are real.

Morgan Taylor is convinced. He couldn't deny that a small lizard-like monster was rapping on his bedroom window, asking for help. A real monster, just outside his window.

Astonished, he lets it in. With wide eyes he listens to its amazing tale and desperate plea for help — but could he believe the little monster's story? A tale of an object so incredible it staggers the imagination and of the hideous man-creature, the Collector, who has come to Fairfield to claim it.

Dark forces have gathered under the Collector's command, in a hilltop mansion on the edge of town — Fairfield Manor. The crumbling halls, once empty and silent, now echo with the howls of his army of creatures. They have filled the once-barren rooms with mysterious artifacts gathered from the four corners of the earth. Nothing will stop the acquisition of the Collector's greatest prize.

Join the students of Fairfield Junior High and the renegade lizard-monster, Rilo Buru, in a race against the Collector and his strange forces on an adventure that will change the natural and the unnatural world forever.